Thursday, November 01, 2007

Two 'Englishes'-One novel

Currently, A Son Called Gabriel is going through the process of being converted into a UK edition. The Friday Project will use the artwork created here by my US publisher, but will amend it to better suit their needs. The novel will come out over there in what's called 'B' format in March 2008 (mass market in the US). Very exciting.

Already I've been working with Clare Weber who's an editor at TFP and the copy editor they use is finding lots of American English that needs to be changed. I'd even forgotten how to spell 'pyjamas' because it's 'pajamas' here.

It's extraordinary. I've been living in the States for fifteen years and have no idea when I started to write 'American'. It just crept up on me. Now I wouldn't know if I was spelling a word incorrectly in standard English.

On that note, I was watching a documentary on PBS last year where they stated American English is now regarded as the official English language throughout the world. Apparently, more people abroad are taught or opt to be taught American English than Oxford English.

Yikes. Will a day come when Oxford English goes the way of Cornish, Scottish, Welsh or Irish?

No comments:

Twitter Updates

About Me

I was born in Northern Ireland and came of age during The Troubles. Wrote a first novel while commuting to work as an attorney in NY. It still exists as bits and bytes on a floppy disk and will probably never get revisited because I got sick to death of the heroine after spending two years with her. So bored with her situations did I become (or was it an unwillingness to do yet another edit?), I packed her into a trunk and commenced my second novel that got published both here in the US and UK. It's called A Son Called Gabriel. To my surprise, it took on a life of its own by getting selected as an ABA BookSense Pick and becoming a finalist in a couple of literary awards. I'm now busy with my second novel, a transatlantic tale set in London and NYC, and mulling the plot for another novel.
E-MAIL: damianmcnichollvarney-AT- gmail-DOT-com